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Faked Program On Drug Smugglers Draws Large Fine

LONDON, BRITAIN — A British television commission has slapped a record $3.2 million fine on a production company found to have faked an award-winning documentary about Colombian drug smugglers.

Carlton Communications, which used actors to play supposedly real drug traffickers, committed "a wholesale breach of trust between program-makers and viewers," the Independent Television Commission said on

Friday.

The film, "The Connection," which was shown in part by the CBS news program "60 Minutes" in the United States, had purported to show a smuggler, or "mule," from the Cali cartel as he brought drugs into Britain.

After The Guardian newspaper questioned the film's authenticity, an independent panel of lawyers and television producers found that

its producers used faked locations and paid actors.

The panel noted, for example, that a man interviewed with his face covered and described as the Cali cartel's financial controller was an actor--as were the "mule" and another key character.